So I'm heading to Vegas soon and thinking of dropping some money on PSU for fun. The initial options that caught my eye were OSU being a 19 point favorite over us, and the 15-1 odds for us to win the Big 10. I like the latter one better. Did any other lines/bets out there catch anyone's attention?
Rationale:
There's a chance going into the OSU game we'll be 6-0. We should be favored in our first 6 games, but of course we may not win them all (I suspect we'll lose 1 somewhere along the way). If we do manage a 6-0 start, I expect the line will not remain at +19. Given that historically we've had some close and low scoring games against the Buckeyes my gut reaction was that 19 points seemed generous. I'm not saying we'll win this game, but with 19 points I'm thinking of taking a gamble. Of course we haven't scored 24+ vs. OSU since 2001, and this OSU team will be loaded on both sides of the ball so that's unlikely to change this year. Even if it does, OSU is certainly capable of hanging 43+ on us anyway to cover.
Also, at 15-1 I like the B1G championship bet purely from an odds perspective. I doubt we'll win it, but this year has a recipe of things that could lead to unexpected success. We have a QB and defense good enough to keep us in every game. We may catch teams off guard given our offensive struggles last year, but entering a 2nd year with the same coaching staff. We have a relatively easy schedule in terms of OOC and cross division games. If the OL can drastically improve, a big if, but if it happens we have the potential to shock some teams and pull some upsets (OSU & MSU). I wouldn't count on any of this happening, but at 15 to 1 it might be worth taking the shot in the dark.
Rationale:
There's a chance going into the OSU game we'll be 6-0. We should be favored in our first 6 games, but of course we may not win them all (I suspect we'll lose 1 somewhere along the way). If we do manage a 6-0 start, I expect the line will not remain at +19. Given that historically we've had some close and low scoring games against the Buckeyes my gut reaction was that 19 points seemed generous. I'm not saying we'll win this game, but with 19 points I'm thinking of taking a gamble. Of course we haven't scored 24+ vs. OSU since 2001, and this OSU team will be loaded on both sides of the ball so that's unlikely to change this year. Even if it does, OSU is certainly capable of hanging 43+ on us anyway to cover.
Also, at 15-1 I like the B1G championship bet purely from an odds perspective. I doubt we'll win it, but this year has a recipe of things that could lead to unexpected success. We have a QB and defense good enough to keep us in every game. We may catch teams off guard given our offensive struggles last year, but entering a 2nd year with the same coaching staff. We have a relatively easy schedule in terms of OOC and cross division games. If the OL can drastically improve, a big if, but if it happens we have the potential to shock some teams and pull some upsets (OSU & MSU). I wouldn't count on any of this happening, but at 15 to 1 it might be worth taking the shot in the dark.
